


A Prize Specimen

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: And You Do Not Mess With Their Family, BAMF Winchesters (Supernatural), Castiel (Supernatural) Whump, Castiel is Sam and Dean’s Family, Gagged Castiel, Gen, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Tied-Up Castiel, Wing Oil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 07:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17524292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When Dean, Sam and Cas team up with another family of hunters to take down some vampires, none of them suspected their new associates of having an enterprising way of making money.Not until Cas stops answering his phone.





	A Prize Specimen

In hindsight, Dean can see a million and one warning signs; he feels like his subconscious was screaming at him _wrong wrong wrong_ and yet somehow he missed all of that.

And now, because he’s spent the past two day being a dumbass, they’re missing their angel.

But not for long.

++

Henrik Volka’s a big dude, reminds Dean a lot of Rufus Hannassey from _The Big Country_.

He has the kind of fat that’s just as good as muscle, in a fight, and while Dean’s not cowed, not the way the guy’s sons are, he’s hopeful they can get through this hunt and get clear without drawing the brunt of what both he and Sam are sure is one hell of a temper.

They track down the vampires (two groups, it turns out, hunting to some kind of rota) and things get bloody, and a little hairy.

None of them advertise Cas is an angel; he draws some weird looks for the non typical hunter attire (one of these days, Dean plans to get him into some plaid and a pair of jeans, but the cosmic shock of it might end the damn world). But when push comes to shove, Cas could tip over a garbage truck.

So by the time they’re all drenched in vampire blood, and there’s a dozen plus bodies (and as many heads scattered around; one rolls under a car and gets wedged there, and the smallest of the Volka boys has to squeeze under to force it out) it’s pretty clear Cas isn’t human.

When he reaches out to heal a nasty, weeping graze on Sam’s cheek, right in front of Papa Volka, it’s pretty clear what he _is_.

And that sudden eager recognition in Henrik’s eyes is one of the things Dean didn’t so much miss as just not understand, not until Cas wasn’t answering his phone.

++

It doesn’t take much to find out the Volka family owns a small patch of land just north of the nearest town.

It’s little more than a pile of dirt with a barely held together single level shack, and a small barn a little to the back of that.

The sudden yelp of pain is familiar to Dean, God only knows he wishes it wasn’t, and it leads both him and Sam there, rushed but not stupid.

Maybe the Volka men thought that they were, because there’s not a one of them standing guard.

Or maybe Cas was just that much of a handful (after, when they have him away from there and safe, Dean thinks it was exactly that).

They’re all around him anyway, and there are two of them to each wing, straining as Cas tries to buck them off, his voice oddly muffled, and they’re snapping at him, at each other.

“Get it fucking in there,” Henrik says, and he cuffs the back of one son’s head.

“It’s blocked!”

“Then squeeze until it’s not!”

And then Cas yells again, and he sounds both enraged and in pain, and that’s when Sam fires his shotgun in the air.

The men stagger back, and holy shit Dean wants to shoot all of them.

Cas’s hands are bound behind him, and he’s gagged. Two large harnesses are hanging from the ceiling, one wrapped around each of Cas’s wings, straining to hold him as he tries to get away.

As always, the sight of their angel’s wings enraptures Dean, a little, but this time it’s different.

It’s the shock of what’s been done to them that freezes him up.

They’re bedraggled, the feathers roughed up the wrong way, a few hanging half ripped out (Dean’s expert eye can see a couple of broken shafts and that, yeah, that is going to hurt later, and it does).

One is hanging more limply than the other, and he thinks possible partial dislocation, maybe even a break in one of those fragile bones.

But it’s the tubing. 

There’s a long length of it dangling from Cas’s right wing, rammed into the oil gland. It leads down to a plastic bottle, and Dean watches drops of liquid slowly filling it.

The other wing, in the same place, looks all swollen and inflamed.

One of the Volka boys has another piece of tube in his hands, and the edge of it stained red.

“What the hell,” Henrik says, and Dean can tell it’s grudged, but he thinks it’s a preferable solution to a shootout. “We got no problem splitting the money with you; if you can get this little fuck to cooperate.”

Dean shoots him where he stands.

++

There’s not a whole lot to be done for Cas in the back seat of their car, and hanging around the area didn’t seem that smart a thing to do.

So Cas dismisses his wings, even though they both know he’s hurting, and he bears it until they get back home to the bunker.

There, Sam takes none of Cas’s shit and herds their angel to the infirmary.

The wing those bastards _had_ successfully tapped is actually in fair condition all the same. They straighten out the feathers, and Cas says the gland will close up gradually to the size it was before somebody stuffed a plastic tube in it so they could milk him.

The other wing, though; that’s the one that’s taken the brunt of it.

Those snapped feathers have to be pulled, and they’re old hands at it by now, but every single one hurts.

There’s no break, thankfully, but that still leaves them the clogged up gland to deal with.

Dean soaks a towel in water as hot as he thinks Cas can bear, and then holds it to the wing while Sam soothes their angel with word and touch.

When the gland suddenly pops, Cas shudders and groans; the sensation is both relief and discomfort in one.

Dean removes the towel to find the oil plug and a slick mess in the middle, and he dumps it in the laundry.

There’s not much else to be done, then, except for all of them to settle. Sam heads for the den and sets up a movie, grabs some beers.

Dean helps Cas get off the bed, stands there as he watches the angel fret over tucking his wings away.

“You can leave ‘em out, if it helps, Cas,” he says.

He knows previously, when something’s hurt them, not cramming them into the void, or wherever, does reduce the angel’s discomfort.

But he also knows angels can get a little ...funny…over their wings being on show.

Maybe that’s like celestial nudity, but they are Cas’s family, and Dean doesn’t have any problem with anything that makes Cas’s life easier and more pain free.

He kind of needs to know, himself, that Cas’s wings are whole, and once again undamaged after those bastards had their hands on them.

Cas relents, and Dean escorts him to the den.

Sam watches with a grin as Dean gets the angel settled, and yes, alright, maybe there is an excessive amount of mother henning (Sam’s grin gets wider and wider until Dean thinks his jaw might crack and absolutely no angel healing for him if that happens) but since their angel had a shitty day he’s more than entitled.

This is how it works, for family.


End file.
